


To Know We're Not Alone

by mcgarrygirl78



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Drama, F/M, Friendship, Spoilers, post-episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-06
Updated: 2014-04-06
Packaged: 2018-01-18 10:26:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1425079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcgarrygirl78/pseuds/mcgarrygirl78
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But he'd lost people close to him and often he wondered what the last moments were like for them.  In his job he'd seen enough victims, often of horrific things, and he wondered if they were comforted by oncoming death or absolutely terrified.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Know We're Not Alone

“Did you draw the short straw?” Alex asked as she climbed into the passenger seat of his truck.

“Stop.” Morgan closed the door and went around to the driver’s side. “I had to practically tackle JJ for this distinguished honor. She's worried about you.”

“I'm fine.” 

“I wouldn’t say that. But I will say that you will be.”

“Every day we go out there,” Alex put her go bag between her feet. “We risk our lives. I'm still here…I'm putting it in the win column.”

“Damn straight. Do you want some music?”

“No, I'm good.” 

When Morgan started the truck Van Halen was playing. He quickly reached over and turned it off.

“Was that Van Halen?” Alex asked.

“I've been in a _1984_ mood for the past week. When I was a kid coming up on the South Side for some reason that album hit us big. Everyone was singing _Jump_ and pretending to be Eddie Van Halen. He was the coolest guitarist alive to us cuz he played on _Beat It_. I've been a fan ever since.”

“What about Sammy?”

“What about him?” Morgan glanced at her, wearing his nearly patented grin.

“That’s just wrong.” Alex shook her head.

“No disrespect, that’s just not Van Halen. You a Sammy girl?”

“I'm a sucker for 80s hard rock ballads.” 

“Then you're definitely a Sammy girl. What's your favorite Van Halen song?”

“It’s not a ballad but I love _Poundcake_.” Alex replied. “One time I…nevermind.”

“Aw damn, I think you were just about to get to the good part.”

Alex smiled but she didn’t say anything else. They were leaving Quantico and heading to her house in Alexandria. An hour ago they got off the jet from Wheeling, West Virginia. That was going to be a case she didn’t forget for a long time. Until she saw a body that Unsub was still out there. Until she saw a body, that Unsub was still out there gunning for her. 

He was gunning for anyone in his way and Alex Blake had been in his way. It really was part of the job, knowing someone could get the jump on you at any time. If an agent thought about it too much they wouldn’t have signed up in the first place. She’d been in harm’s way before, was able to shake it off in a variety of ways. Alex knew that this one wasn’t going to be that easy.

“James is home.” She said it because the silence was killing her.

“So that’s a good thing.”

“It’s spring break at Harvard. We thought it'd be wonderful to go away, a real vacation, but work was so busy. Also, it kills me to see how many people take off in the third week of March. The weather has barely broken yet. Where are they going?”

“Not everyone loves sunny weather.” Morgan replied. “And for those who do…the weather is always broken in the Bahamas.”

“True. He was barely there 48 hours before we were back on a jet. He said it was alright. I mean he could’ve stayed at his Boston apartment, found some work to do, but he wanted to come home.”

“He wanted to see you.”

“That, and he wanted to cook breakfast with his own pots and pans.” Alex smiled some. “I refused to let him take them though I barely use them. I just love the way they look in our kitchen.”

“Are you going to tell him what happened?” Derek asked.

“Why would I do that?” Alex countered with another question before he barely got his out.

“I don't know, he's your husband.”

“I don’t want him to look at me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Well I mean he always looks at me; he’s my husband. I just don’t want him to look at me with worry in his eyes. I don’t want him to worry he's going to lose me or that I can't take a few hits in the field. He's so busy, I don’t want that on his mind when it should be on other things.”

“It’s always on his mind, Alex. It’s always on mine.”

“What?”

“Losing you. Losing JJ or Spencer or Hotch or Rossi. It’s way in the back probably behind dusty memories of beer pong or my third girlfriend. I don’t want it pushing too close to the front, but it’s always there. It’s a motivating factor just as much as its one of the scariest thoughts I've ever had.”

“You were with Emily Prentiss as she was dying.”

“Yeah.” Morgan nodded. He cleared his throat. “It was one of the toughest moments of my life. I had to fight with everything I had not to jump in that water after you, pull you out, and not let go. You should’ve never been alone.”

“You were alone.” She reasoned.

“Yeah, but…”

“What? But what, Derek? Were you going to say that you're a man and I'm not because you better not even be thinking something like that.”

“I was thinking that I couldn’t mourn my own death.” He said, taking his eyes off the road for a moment to look at her. “That might be stupid and selfish but it’s true.”

“Look at the road.” Alex said.

“Yes ma'am.” He nodded and did what she said.

“I'm going to be fine.”

“I know. And I'm grateful. I'm not just grateful for myself. I'm grateful for you and for James and even for that kid at Georgetown who is ignoring his assignment right now and trying to get laid at a party.”

“I know that kid.” Alex rolled her eyes. “Thank you.”

“For what?” Morgan asked.

“I don't know, this.”

“Are you thankful enough to tell me the _Poundcake_ story?”

“Not on your life.” She laughed and shook her head.

“I'm gonna earn it one day.”

“It’s good to have goals, Morgan.”

“It’s good to see you smile.”

“I'm scared of water.” Alex said, her smile fading. “When I was a little girl I was deathly afraid of large bodies of water. My mother was afraid of water to a smaller degree but neither of my parents quite knew where my crippling fear came from. Back then parents thought the best way to deal with things like that was head on so I had to take swimming lessons. 

“It was one of the most horrific experiences of my life. But I battled through and I, mostly, defeated my fear. Tonight in that dirty pond it all came flooding back.” She tried to breathe as the tears welled in her eyes. “I could hear you all screaming my name and I tried to get to you but it felt like someone was holding me down. 

“I don’t even think it was him it was just…the weight of my fear was choking the life out of me. I froze. I remember fighting but as soon as I was submerged I just froze in terror. It was just like that horror movie where your worst fears terrorize and kill you. God, I hate horror movies.”

“Did your life flash before your eyes?” Morgan asked.

He didn’t know why he asked such a thing. It wasn’t appropriate and it wasn’t his business. But he remembered the conversation they all had after Emily came back to the BAU and they were profiling that Unsub who was drowning people and bringing them back to life so they could tell him what happened. Emily talked about fear and darkness; Reid described warmth and light. 

Derek didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about death. Life was complicated enough. But he'd lost people close to him and often he wondered what the last moments were like for them. In his job he'd seen enough victims, often of horrific things, and he wondered if they were comforted by oncoming death or absolutely terrified.

“No. I heard my mother’s voice; the way she used to call me when I was up a tree reading or on the other side of the porch playing. She sounded really far away. I thought about James and how someone would have to tell him not just that I was gone but what happened to me. I thought about Erin.”

“Strauss?” hearing the name surprised Morgan. He knew that Alex and Erin were bitter enemies. There was also a rumor that they made some kind of tentative peace accord before the Section Chief’s murder but he didn’t know anything about it. Morgan did his best, which wasn’t always easy, to stay far away from the BAU grapevine.

“Yeah.” Alex nodded.

Erin was there and told her it was going to be OK. She knew it was scary but Alex wasn’t going to die alone. In fact she wasn’t going to die at all, it wasn’t her time. She needed to fight. Shake off the fear and give it everything she had. 

She needed to hate death, hate it as much as she did Erin at one time. It wasn’t going to let go of her, that wasn’t the way it worked. Alex had to do the fighting. She swore that Erin practically pushed her to the surface of the murky, dark waters. 

But she couldn’t be sure and Alex was never going to tell a soul. Erin Strauss could be in one of many places right now but she was sure that a lake in West Virginia wasn’t one of them. Also the idea of Erin being her guardian angel was almost laughable. It made her heart hurt just a little bit more.

“I'm just glad you're not going to be alone tonight. Sometimes you want to be after something like this happens, and it’s probably even OK to embrace that feeling for a day or two. But if you embrace it for too long it kinda wraps itself around you and won't let go. It won't be able to do that with James here, even if you distance yourself from him physically.”

“How to Survive being a Hot Ass Mess, by Derek J. Morgan.” Alex almost smiled again. “James is rarely here.”

“I would stay with you.” Morgan cleared his throat. “If you needed me to.”

“If I asked you to.”

“Of course. We could stay up all night, make s’mores, watch classic movies, and braid each other’s hair.”

“You're going to have to grow back that fro you had in elementary school if we’re going to do that.”

“I wish there was a way I could erase that memory from your head.” Derek said.

“Absolutely not. You were the most adorable kid ever. If I were your mother I’d display every picture of you ever taken.”

“She’ll be glad to know you approve of her shrine.”

“I'm going to have to tell James, aren't I?” Alex asked.

“You're going to have to do whatever makes you feel comfortable and safe.” He replied. “It’s going to be hard for him, I suspect, to know you're hurting and feeling helpless. But I know he's strong…he has to be being apart from you most of the time.”

“I'm going to be OK.” She started to nod.

Derek didn’t reply. He wanted to look at her but knew if he did then he'd never be able to focus on the road again. They were in Alexandria now, not too far from where Alex lived. Whatever he was going to say he needed to say it quickly. There might not be another chance. 

Sometimes though you just didn’t need the words. That quiet understanding between two people who survived, survived damn near anything, could be more powerful than most dense words of encouragement. Even if the words came from the right place, they often fell on deaf ears. Not everyone wanted or needed the ‘it gets better’ speech. At least not so soon.

“Hotch told me to take a couple of days off. I won't be back to the office until Monday.”

“You want me to split your paperwork with Spencer?” Derek asked.

“Aww c'mon, I'm not dying or anything. You don’t have to volunteer to do my paperwork. That makes me think I look worse than I feel.”

“I can let it pile up. I have plenty of my own to get finished.”

“I appreciate it.” Alex said. “Let something be as it always is.”

A misty rain fell as Derek turned onto Alex’s street. Like a lot of neighborhoods in Alexandria, the sidewalks had been rolled in for the night. There was a warm glow coming from the Blake residence. The kind of warmth that pulled you in like a firefly. Alex looked out of the truck window as Derek coasted into a parking space.

“I want to go in more than anything, and not go in a little more than that.”

“I really understand that.” Derek said.

“You do?” Alex looked at him.

“I've gone home to an empty house so many times when I needed someone there. It’s so difficult to have to share when you're used to going it alone. Your situation is even more unique.”

“I pretend things are alright even when they're not.” She said. “There's nothing unique about that.”

“Go.” Derek’s voice was gentle as he put his hand on her shoulder. “I’ll wait here until you get inside.”

Alex nodded. She took a deep breath before opening the door of his truck. Grabbing her bag, Alex stepped out of the vehicle and slung it over her shoulder. She was tired, felt weak, and it showed in the way she walked. Alex only looked back once, and Derek was right where he said he would be. 

So she kept going; getting to the front door, opening it, and walking inside of her house. The alarm said ‘front door’ and alerted the inhabitants that someone was inside. After closing and locking it, Alex just stood for a minute in the middle of the floor. Within thirty seconds James was there, standing on the stairs. He looked at her, she looked at him, and she knew that he knew. Dropping the bag at her feet, Alex moved as quickly as she could up the stairs and into his arms.

“Welcome home.” James murmured, his lips buried in her hair. He sighed as Alex tightened her arms around his midsection.

“Could you just not let me go?” she asked, the tears back but Alex could care less.

“I got you.”

James sat down on the stairs, leaning against the wall. Alex sat beside him and rested her head on his shoulder. His arm was still around her; she knew she was safe and loved. She thought she would get home and want to hide from the whole world. That was probably true, but James wasn’t the whole world. He was more than that. He was the one who always hid with her.

“Did the good guys win?” he asked.

“I think we might have to call this one a draw.” Alex replied.

“Draws count.” James nodded. “I made you a light dinner if you're hungry.”

“I'm not.”

“You want to have a shower or a bath?”

“Absolutely not. I just want to sit here…just for a little while.”

James kissed her forehead and sat with her. Something had happened, he knew Alex too well not to know that. She didn’t want to talk about it right now and he understood that. What she did for a living wasn’t something most wanted to bring home to the dinner table. She saw the worst of human nature all the time. In the home that they made together, and were actually in together tonight, Alex only wanted the best.

***


End file.
